Shenandoah

Shenandoah is a suburban community on Interstate Highway 45 nine miles south of Conroe in southern Montgomery County. It is typical of the bedroom communities that have proliferated north of Houston in southern Montgomery County since the 1960s. Development of the subdivision, originally known as Shenandoah Valley, began in the late 1960s on a large tract of land on the east bank of Panther Creek just west of newly constructed I-45. The community attracted large numbers of Houstonians seeking lower real estate prices and lower tax and insurance rates. It incorporated under the name Shenandoah in 1974. The boundaries that Shenandoah claimed included much of The Woodlands, Texas, including a commercial center there. An out-of-court settlement reached about 1976 provided for the recognition by Houston and Conroe of Shenandoah's incorporated status in exchange for Shenandoah's deannexing land in The Woodlands that Houston claimed as part of its extraterritorial jurisdiction. By 1976 Shenandoah had an estimated population of 876, and by 1980 it had grown to 1,793. However, the energy-based regional recession of the 1980s halted Shenandoah's growth, and by 1990 it had a population of 1,718. In 2000 the population dropped to 1,503.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.